


Strings

by JaceGem



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceGem/pseuds/JaceGem
Summary: You're not sure where you got it, or why you have it, but you have the ability to imbue magic into any article of clothing or blanket you make. Hats, coats, pants, mittens, you've made them all and put magic into every single one of them. So, why not create something special for the man you've been dating for over 2 years?
Relationships: Grillby (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 4
Kudos: 109





	Strings

You don’t really know where you got it from, and you don’t know why you have it, but for as long as you could remember you’ve had this strange ability to imbue your yarn works with a tiny bit of magic. Whether it was to comfort an anxious soul, warm a cold body, or soothe a stressed mind, you could impart magic into every string of yarn in your work. Blankets, scarves, mittens, hats. You made them all, you enchanted them all. And no one appreciated this little talent of yours more than Grillby.

You’d been dating him for about two years now, and while he wasn’t the most talkative person in the world, he didn’t really need to say a whole lot for you to understand what he was saying. You’d gotten pretty good at reading the subtle changes in his facial expressions, sometimes you could just look at him and know what he was thinking just by the look in his eyes. He had seen you make a set of mittens for Frisk, imbued with warmth magic so even if they were wet, their hands wouldn’t get cold. You even made an apron for Toriel, and placed in it a creative magic unlike she’d ever seen, one that made cooking in the kitchen so much easier with so many ideas buzzing around in her head.

Currently you were relaxing after getting home from your job as a teacher, lost in thought working on a new scarf, one specially made just for Grillby. Not to warm him up, of course, he _is_ a fire elemental after all, but to always remind him how much you care for him. For this piece, you would give the magic it held a little something special, something to really get the message across that you support him and want to see him succeed. You hoped he would like it, he works himself so hard running his restaurant, he really deserves something to remind him how appreciated he is. Maybe-

“I’m home.” you hear him call from the front hallway. You quickly stashed your yarn and knitting needles, and opened the door to your room. “Welcome home, how was work?” you ask as you bound down the stairs. “Busy as usual, barely any time to catch my breath.” He seats himself on the couch, looking more exhausted than he normally does. You give him a quick hug, and tell him you’re going to start dinner. He’s more than appreciative of that, he feels like he’s done enough cooking for the year already.

He’s crashed out by the time you finish doing the dishes. You figure it’s best to not bother him, let him sleep. He clearly needs it. You sneak back to your room, and continue work on the scarf. You even picked out a couple new colors to incorporate with the robin’s egg blue and sea foam green you already have picked out, a nice light shade of lavender and a dusty coral pink.

You work tirelessly, making sure every single stitch is perfect. You want to surprise Grillby with it, which makes it a bit harder to hide the closer you get to finishing it. Wow, you did not mean to make it this long, but here you are. You could take it to school with you to work on while you don’t have any students. And you almost packed it into your school bag when you remembered, oh right, you have Frisk in your class. They like visiting you and Grillby sometimes, and they are a mischievous one. You’ve found them in your room before, drawing something for you. And while you don’t mind, you’d rather not take the risk of them finding the scarf and asking you about it while Grillby is home.

Finally you just decide it’s best to work on it outside the house, and you could use the company of another person anyway. You decide visiting Toriel whilst you work on it would be best, so you take your vacation a little early, and spend the time with her. Maybe she could even give you a hand picking which kind of magic should be imbued into it when it’s all done.

“I’m sure whatever kind you put into it, he’ll be happy with. I don’t know Grillby extremely well, but I don’t believe he’s a picky person. As long as it comes from a place of sincerity.” she says, sipping her tea and looking up from her book. Toriel’s always been a good friend to you. She was the teacher you shadowed while you were still in school, and there were plenty of times she helped you with your lesson planner and grading papers. You feel you couldn’t have asked for a better colleague.

She’s a good mentor, confidant, and caretaker to Frisk, who thankfully was off visiting Sans and Papyrus right now. You could talk to her about so many things, and she’d almost always have good advice, or wisdom to give. She even helped you pick out color palettes for various other projects of yours. This one, you felt, was to be your best. And you were so close to finishing it. Just a few yards of yarn left, and it would be ready.

You came and spent a few hours a day with Tori, chatting and enjoying a cup of tea or two in between finishing the scarf. You were always back home before he got off work. In a small way, it felt wrong keeping a secret like that, lying about what you did all day. But you knew in your head that it wasn’t wrong to preserve a secret, and you wanted to see the look on his face when you give it to him.

It took about another week’s worth of sporadic work to finish it, and when you did you were extremely proud of yourself. It was quite possibly the softest scarf you’d ever made. The stitching wasn’t too tight, nor was it too loose. It was comfortable, it didn’t get too hot too quick, and you even forgot you were wearing it for a minute until you almost stepped outside your room with it on when you heard Grillby call from downstairs. You quickly removed it, and stashed it in the plain brown box you’d told him was full of “school supplies” the one time he found it, closed thankfully, and went downstairs to start dinner. You still needed to give it its magic before you could give it to him, but hell if you knew what kind of magic it was going to get.

And this tore at you for a few days. Do you be cheesy and give it simple love magic to remind him how much you love him, or do you make it more complex yet subtle and give it some sort of calming magic, possibly even magic to ease his nerves at work when it’s really busy and he’s got a lot to get done? He’s not one for showing emotions in public, but you know all that stress has got to be building up, even if he doesn’t show it.

You figured you’d let it sit for a few more days, let it stew in your mind. A few days passed, then a week, then two weeks. Still no idea. Still stuck in the same rut. You just wanted to be done with it already and take the easy way out and make it non magical at this point. But no, you wouldn’t do that. If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing it right. You would finish this, you would see it done, and you would see it done properly. You slept on it one more night, and in the morning, finally you knew what you’d do.

Grillby wasn’t exactly a young monster. Not to say he was elderly, but he certainly had a good decade or so on you. And you noticed that often times when he would come home, he would be so tired he would fall asleep without even eating. You always wished you could help somehow, give him more energy to keep going. Maybe... just maybe this was your route to doing just that.

You went to see him the next day. It was a Sunday, one of the slower days of the week for Grillby. You walked in just before close to see him starting to clean everything up and get ready to shut down for the night. He still looked so exhausted from Saturday night’s business. It’s his busiest night of the week, everyone’s off work and out for drinks and food. You walk up to the bar, and before he can even ask what you’re doing there you place a box on the counter. He eyes you for a second, and then eyes the box.

“I made something for you. Go on, open it.” you urge him. He carefully unfolds the flaps and lifts out the scarf. It glows a faint shade of orange, pastel almost. And you can tell just from him touching it, he already looks like he’s ready to take on the world, full of energy and life again. He gently wraps it around himself, and wraps you in a hug shortly after. He can’t remember the last time he felt so alive, such a renewed vitality within himself. He feels your age again. And he can only say one thing to you.

“Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> So glad to be back writing. This was a commission fic for a reader of mine on Tumblr, thank you so much for the commission my dear!


End file.
